Montgomery County's all-Democrat County Council demonstrated that it was up to its predictable tricks last week during a meeting on Tuesday evening in the County Council hearing room.

The Council, in a purely partisan appeasement of a Democrat special interest group - the illegal alien community - is unanimously in favor of a Special Appropriation of about $375,000 to fund an outside organization to provide “free" legal services to illegal aliens in Montgomery County who find themselves facing deportation. And by “free” I mean that us citizens will pay for it with our tax dollars, as the funds come out of our county budget. You know, that same budget which had a $120 million dollar shortfall that forced departments county-wide to do some belt-tightening, despite the 8.7 % property tax increase, 33% recordation tax increase, the bag tax, the energy surcharge (tax) that was supposed to be temporary and is still in effect and the ever-(not) amusing “rain tax” which Governor Hogan repealed across the state, but which our dear county leaders have kept in place for us.

The County Council meeting featured many familiar faces opposing these recurring acts of fiscal malfeasance, but what was refreshing and encouraging was how many new faces appeared to testify, namely citizens who felt so outraged by this issue that even though they clearly knew no one else in the room on either side these citizens marched down to this hearing to exercise their First Amendment right to petition their government. Bravo to all of them!

Some talked about how they or their immediate family members immigrated to the United States and became citizens by going through the process legally, at no small financial or personal sacrifice. They wondered “If I and my family could do it legally, why can’t these other people?” The fundamental insult of this Special Appropriation was clearly felt most acutely by these proud New Americans whose deep love for this country and their American citizenship shines through. Some of them came from countries where rule of law was not the norm and are not only outraged, but more importantly broken-hearted to see rule of law disintegrating before their eyes in their new home of Montgomery County.

The fact is that the Democrats have made our community, including our public schools, a magnet for the violent MS-13 gang and strained our county budget for social services across the board to support this low income, low education, unskilled but hard-working population which contributes to our school over-crowding and insatiable MCPS budget needs.

So while our county politicians are desperately hoping Montgomery County is chosen by Amazon for HQ2 in order to erase all their mismanagement and poor decisions that have fostered the problems that were outlined in the recent non-partisan Sage Policy Group’s economic not-too-rosy analysis of our county, can they really be so myopic to not question why Amazon would locate in such a mercurially managed county which has seen virtually no business growth in recent years?

If you want to know how you can help oppose this misuse of your tax dollars, send an email to me: email Gail.

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